


Pride Goeth

by toli-a (togina)



Category: Justified
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Missing Scene, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-16 16:14:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16957284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/togina/pseuds/toli-a
Summary: Art scowls at them both. “What the hell is going on?” he demands, crossing his arms and glaring at Raylan. “And who the hell is Rev. Roundtree?”





	Pride Goeth

**Author's Note:**

> sparkofthevoid asked: This may not be a very good prompt idk but I always wanted to see in a fic Boyd and Raylan haveing like, inside jokes and references from when they were young? And maybe one of them brings up something at a random time and the other just bursts out laughing and everyone else is very confused idk. Love your writing!!
> 
> All right, I have saved this prompt and cuddled it close and thought about it repeatedly because it is wonderful and I love it. Of course Raylan and Boyd have a million inside references and jokes and memories (it’s one of the things I love so much about season four, when their shared past is so important to the plot), and of course everyone else would be standing there like “what the hell?” But then I tried to write something and it came out horribly angsty and not really funny at all, so here this is.
> 
> This is set during “Veterans” (Season 1.11) shortly after Art slams the Bible down on Boyd’s hands. Warnings for alcoholism and a not very good pastor and a lot of Bible quoting.

“You sound like Rev. Roundtree,” Raylan tells Boyd, one corner of his mouth curling up, and Boyd laughs out loud, despite Art standing beside him and the Bible open across his cuffed hands.

“Why, Raylan, are you reminding me that pride always goeth before a fall?” Boyd asks, still chuckling.

Art scowls at them both. “What the hell is going on?” he demands, crossing his arms and glaring at Raylan. “And who the hell is Rev. Roundtree?”

Raylan shrugs. “He was the pastor at the Harlan Church of Christ,” he explains shortly. He still ain’t too pleased with the way Art took the Bible to Boyd’s hands.

“And that’s funny?” Art presses, looking like he’d appreciate the chance to either hit someone or lock himself up in his office with a fresh bottle of bourbon.

“Well, now, Raylan hasn’t recounted the good reverend’s rise and subsequent … decline.”

“His fall,” Raylan corrects, and shares a grin with Boyd. Art looks ready to spit nails. “Rev. Roundtree mightily enjoyed preaching against the evils of alcohol,” he says, shaking his head and smiling wider when Boyd huffs.

“Look not thou upon the wine when it is red!” Boyd thunders, sounding almost exactly like Roundtree had in the pulpit when they were kids. “At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder!”

“Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God?” Raylan quotes back, and Boyd nods along in mock solemnity.

“Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.”

They raise their eyebrows at each other. Rev. Roundtree had always been particularly fond of that Bible verse, had quoted it with one gimlet eye on the pews in the back where the Givenses and Crowders had filed dutifully in. _Sin leads to death_ , he would always hiss at the boys when they finally escaped the confines of the church and were forced to march down the steps with their mamas and shake Roundtree’s clammy hand.

“This goes on for some years,” Raylan narrates, tapping his fingers on the table. “Roundtree rails against the liquor stores up in Cumberland, rails against the restaurants in Harlan that serve alcohol, rails against the parishioners brewing moonshine in their backyards.”

“Your granddaddy chief amongst them,” Boyd adds, and Raylan tips his head in acknowledgement of that particular fact.

“Until one morning, the reverend shows up to root out drunken evildoers, works himself into such a lather he’s red-faced and panting.Then he commences to warn us all about the spiders creeping up from hell and crawling along the walls.”

“He had the DTs,” Art guesses immediately, because Raylan’s boss is a good marshal and quick on his feet.

Raylan nods. “He did. Man had been drinking for years, buying his moonshine from my granddaddy and partaking of the communion wine. He’d also been sleeping with Deacon Turner’s wife. He confessed to that sin and many others before tripping over the altar in his haste to escape the eight-legged judgment of God and falling down the stairs.”

“I don’t suppose this Rev. Roundtree is your role model?” Art asks Boyd, no doubt hoping that Boyd will confess to arson and murder and fraudulent Christianity besides.

Boyd looks straight at Raylan, serious again. “But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone,” he says firmly, and Raylan thinks of Rev. Roundtree dropping by their Sunday school to quote that very verse at two young boys buttoned into their only white shirts and still soiled by their names. He thinks that—despite Roundtree’s example—Boyd never really did learn that pride goes before a fall.

“And which are you, Boyd?” Raylan wonders, but he doesn’t give Boyd time to answer before he stands up and motions Art out of the room.


End file.
